Spring Lake Park

Located in South Omaha and originally established in the 1870s as an urban park with a lake, Spring Lake Park has been a highlighted project of the CSO Program. Sometime during post-World War II the lake was drained and the park became a dumping ground instead of a place for families to gather for Sunday afternoon picnics. Today, the CSO Program has formed a partnership through three grants from the Nebraska Environmental Trust, with resources from Omaha Parks, Recreation and Public Property; Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District; Keep Omaha Beautiful; Spring Lake Neighborhood Association; and the Spring Lake Park Habitat Restoration and Preservation Team. Plans are in the works to revitalize the area by putting the “lake” back in Spring Lake Park.

The final design identifies a broad range of innovative green elements that will expand the park’s wildlife habitat diversity, increase recreational opportunities with a lake stocked with fish and allow residents in the neighborhood to reclaim the park.

In addition to the green solutions impact on enhancing the beauty of the park, it will also save the city approximately $5 million dollars in grey solutions, reducing the need for construction of some new larger diameter piping systems downstream of the proposed detention ponds.

The project plan was honored with a Merit Award in Planning & Analysis in the Central States American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Awards Program in Saint Louis on March 22, 2013. The Central States area includes six ASLA chapters that span eight states. It also received from an Award of Merit for news media coverage from the Nebraska Public Relations Society.